Waiting for the Slow Down

This is how I feel lately.... That is all.

Soft Mommy Tummy

 

Its been a very frustrating month for me, mostly because it feels like I am working my butt off with running and adding in some strengthening exercises and….NOTHING.  I have nothing to show for it.  Not a pound lost, not change in the mirror, not a change in dress size.  I have steadily increased miles over the last three month and I am running a better mile pace too. I need to scream obscenities…

I just don’t get it. So depressing.  But after some long time spent in contemplation (or in a wine bottle) I have determined just exactly why I remain unchanged.  That pudgy, stubborn mommy tummy that most women have in some fashion is meant to be there.  Especially for when you have small children.  Those of you with little kids will know what I am talking about.  Example: Little girl #2 come running at me from across the house, full bore, and does a header right off my abdomen.  Now if I had a fantastically ripped set of abdominal muscles she might have hurt herself when slamming her forehead into my stomach.  But since I have a soft midsection it just cradles her like warm bread with butter. (and she seriously jumps around like a crazy wild animal most of the day)

Ok, wrong type of kid, but you get the picture of what I’m working with here.  So from now on I plan on living in my own little fantasy world of delusions of why I may need to keep some softness to my form.  I mean, truly, its for the kids.

Get Off the Phone

 

Fourty minutes spent in the “sweat box” otherwise known as my front porch and I am miserable.  I trudged through 4 miles, wished the whole time that lighting would strike and disable my electricity so that the treadmill would die a horrible death.  But alas there was not a cloud in the sky and I paid the electric bill for last month, so I kept moving forward. 

Perspective, right!!! I’ll stop complaining.

You should see the amount of sweat on the front of my treadmill after today.  It might even constitute as a bath for it. Little girl #2 referred to me as juicy when I came inside, which I still can’t decide if I should be offended by…

Since my move last year I have had to do a whole lot more driving to and from work than I ever have in past.  I have come to the conclusion that other drivers suck, and I shouldn’t have to deal with their stupidity.  GET OFF YOUR PHONE WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING.  YOU WILL KILL SOMEONE OR YOURSELF!!!.  That’s all.

Work is so much WORK!!!

 

This body was not designed for hot weather.  It needs a nice moderate climate that requires such clothing as jeans and light jacket; perhaps a lovely decorative scarf.  The pacific northwest perhaps.  Of course we all want what we don’t have. (like skin that doesn’t fry at the mere threat of sunlight.)

After little girl #1 and #2 had gymnastics class we came home a worked in the yard.  I successfully rescued two evergreen bushes from their captor (the ground), trimmed some twigs, sticks, freaking huge branches from some trees, and uncovered some paving stones that I remembered used to be a small walkway from the porch to the driveway. We are buying my grandparents home and after living in it for a year I have decided that things need to be done that make it “mine” as opposed to “grandpa’s house”. So I started with outside improvements, hence all the yard work today.

this is actual footage of me working

There is now a nice little sun burn on my back, cause I’m an idiot, and my lower back is killing me from the chunk of time I spent hunched over pavement pulling weeks and liberating stones from the ground. But I feel accomplished.  And then I ran 4.5 miles at a 10:10 pace which is like lighting for these hunks of meat attached to my torso. Plus I started season 2 of 24, which is starting off much better than season 1. I’m seeing a lot of runs with me catching up with Jack Bauer’s high jinx across Los Angeles.

This image disturbs me in such a way that I don’t know if I will be able to sleep tonight.  Jen? You?

Arms of Fire

 

3 miles on the treadmill and a random workout video later and I’m pooped.  Not so much from the running but from following the instructions of a skinny minny woman in a tiny leotard.  This particular video was a “body ballet sculpting” video, whatever that means!  The reviews say it’s the same woman that trained Natalie Portman for The Black Swan but I think she is just a woman who has perfected the art of torture.  You know, the kind of torture that’s like watching a crazy woman prantcersize, but in your arms.

Seriously, my arms are on fire.  Who does she think she is making my muscles do things that they haven’t done in years?!?!?  I can’t even imagine what they are gonna feel like in the morning when they feel like this now.  I’m in for it.  At least it wasn’t as bad as this workout.

Even though I think that woman may make my arms fall off I plan on returning to the torture; something that hurts that bad must be doing something good. It’s what I’m telling myself these days.

Just lie to me, ok, and make me think it’s making a difference.

How Else Am I Going to Know I Stink?

 

Anger and hatred do not adequately express the appropriate feeling I have had towards my computer over this last week.  Many a thought has crossed my mind of just tossing it out the second floor window at home and watching it explode on the concrete, or taking a bat to the darn thing a few thousand times.  And just when I begin to come to terms with the thought that my 4 year old laptop might be wheezing its last breath I realize I have been mad at the wrong inanimate object!!!!

The wi-fi switch somehow just magically turns itself off rending my internet useless.  I would repeatedly turn the internet switch back on and just as quickly it would be turned off again.   And then I started to notice a pattern.  Clue #1- no one else in the house seemed to have difficulty with this problem. Clue #2- it happened every time I get on the computer which just happens to be after my runs. Clue #3- it’s me and I’m dumb. (I mean it only took a week for me to figure out what was going on.)  I hate technology (that I don’t understand).

Every time I go to download my daily run from my Garmin 405 I have to use the ANT+ stick to transfer the data and every time I tried to do that it would shut off my internet!!!! WTF!!!!! I have had this watch and computer for around the same time and this is the first time I have had this problem.  From what I can figure, Garmin is doing some sort of fancy upgrade on its website for downloading activities but it can’t yet support the 405 (shocker!), rendering the product only half useful in my eyes.  I rely on that little bugger to tell me just how mediocre I ran so that I can pretend that I am going to get better.  What am I supposed to do if I can’t do that????

I’m just lost right now and I can’t even begin to express how mad I am at Garmin. I ran 5 miles today and I really wanted to look at my splits without using that dang bezel on the watch.  I know, I know, I’m whining about silly problem.  But they are my problems, and they are all I've got.

You better step up your game Garmin. This is not a happy girl.

So confused

It is necessary that I share this with you:

I have no words for this situation. What exactly is going on here? How does this stay in place?!?!? It makes no sense. I must now go and scour my eyes with comet. You just can't unseen something like that.
On Saturday I ran a whole 5.25 miles. It was pretty good, but slow. I realize that most all my runs are slow. I want to be faster but I don't know that I have the drive to get there. I also have no clue how to really train to get faster. When I investigate training plans, they always use all sorts of jargon like splits and fartlek and tempo. Now I can intellectually understand these directions. I just have no real understanding of how to realistically put a training plan in place.

Maybe someday it will all come together. Or I'll become extremely wealthy and hire a coach to train my pants off...literally.

Until then I will live in mediocrity...

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